? ? ?
I search for room number nine, and when I turn the key Blaze gave me, I enter a spacious suite outfitted with sparse furniture. The few pieces in here are all silver with a pearl finish, and they look exquisite and expensive. The minimalist aesthetic reminds me of Aquarius’s office at the royal palace, and it seems to suit his philosophies well—if you’re chasing tomorrow, you probably want to pack light.
A sparkly dress has been laid out for me on the seashell-patterned bedspread, and by now I’m so used to people telling me what to wear and when to wear it that I don’t even care how it looks. Since I have to put it on to curry Aquarius’s favor, there’s no point in having an opinion.
I force myself to take a quick shower so I can pretend to care about tonight, and I’ve just pulled on the dress when there’s a knock on my door. I open it to find Blaze in a hot-pink suit, his white hair twisted into a bun atop his head.
“Now that’s a Wandering Star,” he says gallantly, admiring me. “Let me just fix your hair.”
Without waiting for permission, he comes around me and corrals my wet curls behind my neck, weaving them into one long, loose braid.
“Did you dye your hair white because you’re desperate to be Aquarian?” I ask as he works. “Or do you honestly think that looks good on you?”
He faces me and plucks a few curls free to frame my face. “Are you this charming with all your admirers, or do I warrant special treatment?”
“My admirer—”
But my outrage is cut short because he disappears into my bathroom and returns with a tin of tiny diamond pins that he starts inserting into my hair. I ignore what he’s doing so I won’t give him the satisfaction of a reaction, and I pick up where I left off. “You and Imogen attacked Nishi and me just weeks ago—”
“We didn’t kill you, nor would we.”
He stops working and looks me in the eye, his handsome face creasing with concern. The expression is so full of Aquarius’s magnetic sincerity that I can see why these two fell in with each other. “These are times of war, Rho—but you should know that, as you were the one who sounded the alarm months ago.”
“Sounded the alarm?” I don’t care if I blow my cover anymore, because anger is setting my gut ablaze.
“If we’re going to have a real talk,” I say fiercely, “then let’s start by calling things by their real names. My home planet was demolished—and it was Aquarius’s doing. He destroyed my entire world and murdered my people, and that’s in addition to what he did to Virgo, Gemini, Pisces, Capricorn, the armada—can you understand that, or are you just too damned brainwashed?”
Blaze’s brown skin pales, and the confident light fades from his russet eyes. “Okay . . . let’s talk honestly.”
Even his voice sounds different, deeper. “I want an existence where we’re all allowed to be whom we want. I think what happened to Cancer—and Virgo and Gemini and Pisces and all the other lives lost—is abhorrent and devastating and I’m sick about it. I’m sick about it,” he repeats, his voice growing guttural.
“But I’m not a god.”
He blinks, and his eyes are bright again. “A human who judges Aquarius is like the lion who judges man. We can never know what it’s like to be stars.”
Blaze raises his arm and offers me his elbow. I hesitate, and on seeing my indecision he adds, “Gods create and destroy—it’s the nature of their condition. We can’t have life without death, or fortune without misfortune. That’s just the way things are.”
I have no choice but to play along, so I give in and link my arm through his. As soon as I do, he pulls me in close and murmurs in my ear, “Rho, you should know . . . there’s no tomorrow without you.”
I tilt my head back to look into his eyes. “What?”
He seems completely serious. “The Tomorrow Party believes in your Sight and your vision, and we will follow you to any universe.”
“Except this one,” I say.
His eyes flash and his arm tightens around mine. “Don’t you understand? We’re leaving the Zodiac because we don’t want to die. This solar system is coming to an end: Our sun will burn out. As hateful as his actions seem—and as distasteful as this sounds—what Aquarius is offering us isn’t doom.”
Blaze brushes back one of my flyaway curls and buries it in my braid.
“It’s hope.”
? ? ?
We head to the south wing of the ship and enter a semi-dark room, and immediately I understand why we’re clothed the way we are: My sparkly dress and Blaze’s neon-pink suit are giving off their own light. There are probably a hundred people here, and they all look like different-colored stars. The effect is dreamy and romantic and otherworldly.
Something bright flits in the corner of my eye, and I look behind me. There’s a mirror hanging on the wall, and I catch my own reflection.
The dress hangs above my knees but has a long train in the back, and glimmers of silver trail in the air behind me. The silky fabric isn’t visible—all that can be seen of my silhouette are the constellations of sparkles that adorn the bodice and the twinkling of the diamonds Blaze placed in my hair.
A Scorp girl walks up to us, and I stare at her in awe. Her blue dress swirls like it was sewn from actual water, and her translucent skin glows with light, like Aquarius’s. She hands Blaze and me glasses with a glow-in-the-dark white drink. Blaze clinks his glass with mine and tips the substance into his mouth. Without waiting to see what happens, I down mine, too.
I feel a warm sensation spread through me, and I look down to see my skin is lighting up.
I turn to Blaze. He’s also glowing. He flashes me one of his winning smiles and says, “The idea is to look past people’s shells to the light they carry within.”
But as I gaze out at the hundred or so senior Party members here, all I see is the darkness surrounding the lights. The souls who had to be snuffed out for Aquarius to shine even brighter.
In this solar system of people, it’s not hard to spot the sun. Aquarius’s light is so authentic that he’s obviously the only real star among imitators.
Students flock around him, soaking up his wisdom like he’s their favorite Academy instructor, and it looks incredibly inviting to be one of his followers. To be that inspired, that hopeful, that wholly devoted . . . It seems like it makes everything so much easier.
Even through the crowd of shimmering bodies, his eyes find mine and his voice suddenly rises high enough to cut through the conversations, silencing everyone at once.
“What you all blame on the stars,” he declares, “is something you impose on yourselves.”
There isn’t a sound in the room.
“The stars do not decide which House you are born into—your parents do that, as did their parents before them, and their parents before them. It’s your dependence on ancestral memory—your delusional insistence on chaining your future to your past—that hinders you.”